


In The Final Act

by mrfreddyjones



Series: Thallen Fall Week 2015 [3]
Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: F/M, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, major character deaths, read the starting notes for warnings, spoilers for the s01 finale, thallenfallweek2015
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-28
Updated: 2015-10-28
Packaged: 2018-04-28 15:26:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5095721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mrfreddyjones/pseuds/mrfreddyjones
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"So this is how the world ends: not with a bang, but a whimper."<br/>Eddie sacrifices himself to save the world. Barry sacrifices the world to save Eddie.<br/>(There are warnings, PLEASE read the notes first)</p>
            </blockquote>





	In The Final Act

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Day Three of Thallen Fall Week 2015: October 28: Apocalypse/Zombie AU. I’m going with Apocalypse.  
> Warnings for character deaths (it is an apocalypse, after all) and suicide. Is bringing upon the apocalypse considered murder-suicide? If yes, warning for that, too.  
> Spoilers for the season one finale.  
> Title from the song Sacrifice by Elton John.

“Just so we’re _clear,_ after I kill you I’m going to kill **them**.” Eobard Thawne spits the words with disgust, fury burning in his eyes. “And then I’m going to kill your father. I  always win, Flash! I-”

There’s something like wind, but stronger. There’s lightning, and then there’s Barry Allen, and the suddenly re-opened wormhole. There’s something different about this Scarlet Speedster, however. There’s panic and despair, and even though he looks _exactly_ like the Barry Allen under the Yellow Man’s grip, his eyes look much older. His eyes carry the burden of a future he cannot un-see or prevent, but he can delay. It’s a matter of seconds, the only people who see him are himself and the Reverse Flash – the later only when it’s too late. Barry Allen, future Barry Allen, snaps the Yellow Man’s neck with his hands – his bare hands, his gloves and boots and mask having burned on the run back. And then the red blur disappears, but not alone. There’s the click of Eddie’s gun hitting the floor, and the thud of Eobard’s body falling to the ground, and the deafening silence of the wormhole collapsing on itself and becoming the singularity, but there is no sign of Eddie – or other Barry.

Eddie blinks. In one moment, he has his gun in his hand, about to save the world – about to save Barry – and, on the next, less than a second later, he’s home. Not his apartment, not the place he shares with Iris, but _home_. Back in Keystone, at the house on which he grew up. The house he told Barry about on their last night together, the night where the hero held his hands and looked deeply into his eyes and promised that he had a destiny too, a destiny bright and beautiful like him, and full of so much happiness and love. A future which may or may not involve Iris, or him, or someone else entirely, but a future none the less. When Barry told him that no matter what Eobard Thawne says, the fact that he’s saying it at all is already proof that Eddie Thawne has a future. The night when he realized he was the cause of Barry’s suffering – that if there was no future for Eddie Thawne, there would be no past for Eobard Thawne, and that if there was no Eobard Thawne there would be no Reverse Flash. He thought of all the people Eobard Thawne had killed in the name of his cause, whatever cause that might’ve been, and he realized that if Eobard Thawne was to have never been born, none of them would’ve died. “Barry?” he’s confused, prompting the other for an explanation, for a _how_ and a _why am I not dead_ , but all questions die on his lips when he looks into Barry’s eyes. “Bar?”

“Why, Eddie?” Barry questions, stepping forward. His voice is trembling, his entire body shaking. Eddie doesn’t know this, but back in Central City, a blackhole is open on the skies, growing. It’ll be over soon.

“To save your mom” Barry said, simply. “To save you. To save the world.” He bit his lip, stepping forward. “Did it work?”

Barry swallows, and he’s crying now. “It did. It didn’t.” He shrugs, but his legs are shaking. On instinct, Eddie steps forward, wrapping his arms around the other. “It doesn’t matter. You weren’t there”

“Barry-”

“No, Eddie” Barry pulls back, putting just enough room between them to look into the blue eyes he’d grown to love. “You weren’t there and I couldn’t take it. I couldn’t- I couldn’t be without you. I-”

There’s a scream outside, and Eddie’s stomach drops. “Barry? What happened to the Reverse Flash?”

“He’s dead” Barry whispers, burying his face on Eddie’s shoulder now. “They- They’re all dead.”

“Barry, what did you _do_?”

Instead of answering, the Scarlet Speedster simply holds Eddie close. The black hole has expanded over the entire city by now, and it’s reaching them. “I couldn’t be in a world without you, Eddie”

They’re going to die. Eddie knows that, he can feel it in his bones. He’s going to die, and it kills him that Barry is, too, but apparently losing him killed Barry already. Maybe neither of them was meant to have a future, after all.

“I love you” Barry says, and he’s smiling through his tears. Hazel eyes meet blue ones, the words being uttered on their purest form.

“I love you, too, Bar” Eddie replies, his own eyes filling with tears.

Their lips clash on one final kiss, urgent and full of everything they didn’t have time to say.

And then there was nothing.


End file.
